<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Victoria Webster was born in Chester in 1971. She studied illustration at Leeds Metropolitan University.<p /></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">She began her career as an illustrator in 1993, receiving her first commission from the Halifax Building Society who had seen her degree show. Since then she has held two artist-in-residence positions within schools in the United Kingdom, lectured in illustration at Wellington Polytechnic and the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts and hosted workshops at the National Library of New Zealand. <p /></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">For many years, Victoria has been represented by galleries in the United Kingdom and Australia. Her beautifully crafted oil paintings and watercolours are both cherished for their sense of fun and irreverence and admired for their technical skill. They have been acquired by private collections around the world including Cadbury, Woodmansterne and that of a former Australian State Premier.<p /></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">The whimsical scenes she creates are inspired by a love of travel – stimulating new vistas are deciphered into visual narratives of fantastically patterned compositions. The figures in her paintings exist in a world where friendships run deep and few words are needed to convey familial bonds. Her paintings are lit with the strong light and dark shadows which Victoria first observed when she lived in Melbourne – this creates an exciting juxtaposition. Two identical complementary images, one a positive, the other a negative, interact on the canvas. <p /></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 10pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Following several years working in Australia and New Zealand, she now lives and works in Hertfordshire with her veterinary surgeon husband and two children.<p /></font></font></span></p>
